Home

What's New

SAC Capital could collect a massive tax windfall for the $1 billion it will reportedly pay to settle allegations of insider trading and securities fraud unless the SEC and other federal agencies explicitly forbid it.

Yesterday the CFPB fined Chase Bank $20 million and ordered it to refund over 2 million consumers a total of over $300 million over the sale of junky credit card and debit card add-ons that weren’t even delivered.

Earlier this week, USPIRG Education Fund released "Big Banks, Big Complaints," a report documenting how the CFPB is helping bank customers with its public complaint database. Today, the CFPB announced it had imposed a $20 million civil penalty on JP Morgan Chase and ordered it to refund $309 million to over 2 million consumers for deceptively marketing junky credit card add-on products, some of which consumers didn't even receive. The CFPB is getting results.

Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), joined by cosponsors Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Mark Begich (D-AK), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), introduced the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, which would save $220 billion over the next ten years. U.S. PIRG draws attention to the abuse by shipping more than 700 postcards to a Bank of American P.O. box in the Cayman Islands, a well-known tax haven.

A report released today spotlights a common practice where corporations that commit wrongdoing and agree to financial settlements with the federal government, go on to claim such settlement payments as tax-deductible business expenses. The new study, released by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG), follows a record year of corporate settlements, while many more settlements relating to banking, environmental, and consumer safety issues are expected.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is entering 2013 poised to flex its muscles more vigorously than ever before. [...] The CFPB is "going to be more confident and more aggressive," said Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director for U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a consumer-advocacy organization.

Federal agencies are taking greater steps to prevent companies from claiming tax deductions on settlements reached with the government, though loopholes in the tax code persist, according to a new study by U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

The following is a statement of Ryan Pierannunzi, Tax and Budget Associate with U.S. PIRG, on the settlement announced today between UBS and government regulators over the Libor scandal in which UBS and other financial institutions are accused of unlawfully tampering with interest rates. Along with agreeing to this settlement, UBS admitted to charges of fraud. The total settlement amount is $1.5 billion, of which $1.2 billion will be paid to U.S. agencies.

Pages

Despite giving almost a quarter of a million dollars to candidates, Political Action Committees (PACs) and parties in the last election cycle, K Street did not mount a campaign against the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill as it went to the floor of the Senate earlier this year. The reason lies in the fine print of the bill.

The science of genetic engineering, particularly as applied to agriculture, is radical and new. Contrary to popular belief, the technology is not very precise. As a result, genetic engineering raises a host of ecological and human health concerns that have not been adequately addressed. Despite this, on tens of thousands of acres across the United States, although the exact amount is not publicly available, experiments with genetically engineered crops are being conducted in the open environment with little oversight and public notification.

The state PIRGs conducted two surveys for this report. In a survey of 100 credit card offers during the summer of 2000, the state PIRGs found two major themes: (1) credit card terms and conditions are becoming less favorable to consumers; and (2) credit card marketing practices are misleading and deceptive. In an on-campus survey of college students, conducted during the current school year, the state PIRGs found that the marketing of credit cards to college students is too aggressive.

This PIRG national survey, done in March 2001, compares surcharging and other ATM fee practices at 333 banks and 43 credit unions to the results of six previous PIRG ATM surveys and reports since national surcharging began.

At the same time that we demand a college education, most students have little option but to take out loans to pay for it. Grants are not keeping pace with the rising cost of higher education, and students are becoming increasingly dependent on loans to pay for college. Students who make the important investment in higher education are graduating with alarming levels of debt.

The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision ushered in an era of unprecedented spending by big money in our elections, but we're working to return our democracy back to the principle of "one person, one vote."